Guiding Shadow
by Ivan the Great
Summary: When your team mate invites you to spend the Holidays with her racist, dysfunctional family, you may find that you have a problem. Add some splinter sects of former civil rights movements and then disregard the existence of poor Roman Torchwick; he really didn't have that coming to him. Holiday shenanigans, Scarecrow lawyers, Maids packing heat, and three kinds of cheese ensue.
1. Baseline

Chapter one: Baseline

Beacon, for those new to Vale, perches on the cliffs in the town's extreme eastern edge. The vantage point this offers is such that on a clear day it allows a keen eyed observer, of which Beacon has many, to see clean across the city and across the harbour to Signal academy on the island outside the city's coastal boundary. This view, while impressive, is only had by those students lucky enough to have dorms or classrooms on the western side of Beacon's main building. To the south a student able to see over the assorted plaza's and arches of the campus might catch glimpses of the emerald forest. To the north is an easy view of Forever Fall. But that odd corner; the one that faced south-west with all the blasted masonry and obstruction making the western view unachievable, the place where three out of eighty two possible four person rooms had nothing but a view of the bloody agricultural districts.

It was at this point that Weiss Schnee realized she'd been cursing the view out loud. The tirade came to a mumbling end. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Ruby wasn't on her bed or at the desk. This was exactly the sort of thing the younger girl would have latched onto as an excuse to start some asinine conversation.

Weiss sighed and leaned on the window sill.

"I agree, the view's awful." The jolt Weiss felt threatened to rip her skin right off. She spun in the other direction and saw Blake reclining on her bed reading a book. Weiss goggled at her in the embarrassed way some people do with the mouth closed firmly against the possibility of saying something really stupid until the pulse slowed down again. For her own part, Blake went on reading the book.

The Faunus girl was not wearing her bow or the false human ears. Weiss reflected that it was not unheard of for those without Blake's iron self-control to fail in the charade of passing for human by means of some line approximating "why certainly my fellow definitely-human-person." The only exception to this rule was Penny who could say that sort of thing and not be any weirder, than was usual for her. Then again, the whole business with the tournament had more or less explained that. It was dreadful what happened to poor Roman Torchwick. No matter how evil you are, it had been agreed, you don't have _that_ coming to you.

"Going to stand there all day?" Blake asked as she stood. Weiss reassumed her usual well drilled posture with a movement like a puppet being drawn up on strings. She tried to hide her embarrassment by looking out the window again. Now Blake was standing by her, leaning on the window frame, her easy posture padded by the now twice-repaired curtains. The tournament's aftermath really had been rowdy.

Weiss glanced over at Blake. The dark haired Faunus girl was holding her book casually as she looked out the window on the definitely-not-pastoral agricultural vistas.

"'Ninja's of Love 2: Shinobi in service to Eros'?" Weiss asked, her face losing the mask of calm it had reset to.

Blake moved too fast the eye to track. The book collided with corner opposite Blake's bed and fell behind a desk.

"You saw nothing." Blake said in a tone which lacked her usual conviction. They stared at one another for a moment. The door swung to as Ruby manipulated the handle with her foot. She and her older sister, Yang, maneuvered through the door carrying what turned out to be two large trunks, in Ruby's case, the term war-chest was more readily applied than with Yang's.

As the two pairs took a moment to register one another, a series of glances were exchanged in a rather hurried fashion. Weiss ended up with her left eyebrow raised in a way that made her scar tweak the whole side of her face. Blake couldn't help thinking the effect was eerie, but it was quickly supplanted by surprise at the fact that Weiss had an amused-smirk with options on a slight leer in her facial repertoire. Ruby seemed about to ask a question when Yang broke the silence.

"Did something funny happen while we were out?"

"Not nearly as funny as the sight of you two carrying in those crates." Blake replied. Her face lost the worried expression she had unconsciously adopted in the face of Weiss' leer.

"Hey!" Ruby started "This isn't some crate! It's a High-Durability Express-mail-compliant Light-weight Lock-box!"

"Doesn't that spell…" Weiss began and failed to notice Blake's relieved expression as the shorter girl's attention was diverted elsewhere. Yang meanwhile seemed to be casting her keener eyes around the room, searching for something. She pulled her trunk to the end of the bunk she shared with Blake and started fishing through her drawers.

"So what are you two doing?" Blake asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"We're getting packed up. Classes end at the end of the week so we're getting ready to spend the holidays at uncle Qrow's place." Ruby replied. She glanced down and saw that Weiss was still examining her trunk. "DON'T TOUCH THAT!" She cried and dove for Weiss before the trap was done springing. A cattle prod flicked out from concealment and almost, but not quite, caught Weiss across the midsection. The two of them lay in a heap for a moment until Weiss got her breath back enough to shout.

"What is wrong with you!? Why would you put a cattle prod in your trunk like that you dunce!"

"You're going away for the holidays?" asked Blake, her ears drooping. Yang looked up with her mouth part way open like a response was forming. Upon seeing Blake's poorly hidden dismay, Yang abruptly rethought the next thing she said.

"Oh, yeah. Well I think Weiss is staying too and it won't be more than a couple weeks in any case." Yang stepped over her open trunk and gathered Blake into a hug. "And besides" she whispered "if Weiss is bad company you can always fish your book out from behind the desk when she's out of the room." Blake tensed and squirmed out of Yang's arms; she was horrified at how observant Yang could be at times. Turning back to Ruby and Weiss, she saw that her other roommates had descended into their usual pastime. Weiss was trying not to be too argumentative and Ruby was trying to make a pass at the whole leadering business.

And that was it, more or less. Blake tied on her bow and brushed her hair so that nobody could see where her fake human ears weren't. Weiss gave up trying to figure out why Ruby's lockbox was more of a gun box, or more accurately a Box-Gun as the second booby trap illustrated. Yang rolled her eyes and stepped in before failing to mediate and in so doing restarted an argument that was nearly over anyways. Team RWBY collectively poured out of their room, simultaneously rousing team JNPR from their own and together the students of the north-east and south-west side of the awkward elbow joint of the south wing made their way north to the dining hall and Sunday brunch where Nora pestered Ren, Pyrrah quietly discussed something with Jaune, and Ruby chattered with Yang about seeing their uncle, all while Blake and Weiss sat in a pool of silence which was only broken occasionally by some loud comment from Nora.


	2. Suddenly

**[A/N]****: Expect loss of quality ahead. Editing staff has been reduced.**

Chapter two: Suddenly

Sunday had passed. The last week of school had mostly passed. In fact all that remained now was a Friday night of sitting around with packed baggage. Weiss was about as happy as she'd been when the Vytal festival had rolled through town. Looking back on it, she probably shouldn't have been so happy about that one. When a socially inept AI is entered into your tournament to illustrate how the world no-longer needs your profession, you shouldn't be happy. You should especially not be happy about how that AI then proceeds to commit acts of vigilante justice against members of the friendly neighborhood crime syndicate; this is doubly true when members of the friendly neighborhood crime syndicate have their crimes analysed for exactly how much suffering they caused to the local populace and then had said suffering reimbursed in the space of perhaps ten minutes. Roman Torchwick really didn't have that coming. He had a trial and imprisonment coming to him certainly, but not the gut wrenching things Penny did to him

Weiss shook herself from her remembrance of the late crime lord and his nefarious schemes. She walked back to her room with a spring in her step and a small smile on her face. It was the smile of someone who has achieved some small victory deserving of a small smile. It wasn't a victory she had engineered herself, merely lucky happenstance. She'd managed to get out of dealing with her parents. Apparently she'd made her exit from the Schnee family estate so pointedly that her parents were still cooling down months later and hadn't thought to invite her home for the holidays. Her heart fluttered; she realized that she'd have to go back sooner or later.

She got to the door and stepped into the warm hushed place she now thought of as home. She couldn't help smiling at the sight of everyone doing exactly what they did. Blake reading, Ruby tinkering, and Yang… Yang appeared to be updating a small journal using even smaller handwriting. That gave Weiss just enough pause for everyone to notice her by the door.

"Hey Weiss!" greeted Ruby, looking up from the foot of her bed where she was refitting Crescent Rose's… actually Weiss had no idea what the part of the scythe Ruby was tinkering with was called, or for that matter if what she was doing could be called refitting. Weiss considered what she knew about advanced weapons and decided that it was probably the blast pipe armature. It seemed that anything that was both a gun and a blade had a blast pipe these days, and armatures were a given if you didn't want to end up having to use your own muscles or momentum to switch between gun and blade configuration. Given that the part Ruby was currently screwing back together seemed to be a section of rifled gun barrel with an un-godly non-Euclidean solenoid wrapped around one end, it was a safe bet that blast pipe armature it was.

"Something up Weiss?" Yang asked putting her journal away "You look a bit out of it." Weiss saw that the journal was very dark orange and had no words on the cover. There was a row of stitches running all the way around the edges of the cover. She saw that the craftsman who made had been so skilled as to actually leave no indication of where the knot had been tied.

"Weiss?" asked Blake looking up. The Faunus girl had taken her bow off again. There was something reassuring about that. Even though there ought to have been ears on the sides of her head where the hair was pulled back, the hairline of Faunus in general was such that it curved on the sides of the head without actually looking like it curved up and around an ear that wasn't there. Weiss recalled that Faunus men either had extremely thick beards or couldn't even grow peach fuzz. It had something to do with which clan you belonged to.

"Weiss?" This time it was Ruby. "Why are you holding your sword like that?" The question was enough to make Weiss notice that she was holding her rapier. He looked down at it now. Funny, she'd never held it in an icepick grip before. Only amateurs and really dumb thugs used an icepick grip. Though it did mean she could rotate the cylinder with the same hand she held the blade with. Maybe it was worth looking into. She let her hand relax downward at the wrist so that the blade of her sword chambered snugly with the flat against her shoulder and the back of her arm.

"Weiss." Yang again, this time a warning. Weapons in the dorms were meant to be either disassembled or sheathed at all times for the safety of everyone including the persons holding them.

Blake meanwhile had been scanning the room. Noticing what Weiss was looking at. First Weiss looked at Ruby then turned to Yang, met eyes with her briefly, then looked over at Ruby again. There was something Blake knew the other girl was definitely not looking at: her own bunk.

Blake got up slowly from her bed and sauntered across to Weiss'. On the pillow was a card sized envelope with fancy embossing and bearing the Schnee family seal. Blake picked it up and leapt back just in time to be on the complete other side of the room from where the letter was now held in the wall by Weiss' vibrating rapier. Weiss was fuming and looked ready to hit something right when Ruby and Yang tackled her from either side at once. The heap was not a fight all on its own because Weiss was the only one not fighting. Given the Weiss was assumed to be a side all on her own, Ruby and Yang were trying to restrain somebody who had gone beyond the point of anger that required fighting and had descended into the tranquil valley of gently seething on the other side. When the other two let her back up, Weiss proceeded over to her sword, wrenched it out of the wall and snatched the envelope off the end.

The others looked on with concerned expressions as she sliced the envelope open and discarded it, on the floor no less, and began reading it angrily under her breath.

They say that when somebody acts out of character it is serious business. So when Weiss let out three well-chosen expletives and tried to grind the hand written note on the beautiful stationary that gave the faintest and most modest impression of having been scented with rose water into a fine powder, her friends were duly concerned. Weiss wasn't like this when she was mad. She was a prissy heiress with an air of angry refinement with options on a good tirade when she was mad. They could not recall ever hearing her swear like that. They could not even recall if they'd ever heard or used those sorts of words around Weiss; it would have seemed indelicate. Ruby briefly had a tangential train of thought when she realized that the entire team acted differently towards Weiss; it must have been the high class manners and mannerisms rubbing off.

After Blake tucking the letter out of sight, Ruby running to fetch some tea, and Yang draping one of the fleecy spare blankets over her shoulders, the team waited patiently for Weiss to speak about what had just happened. It came slowly. After some deliberation and two cups of tea Weiss spoke.

"Dad got _mom_ to write to me to get me home for the holidays." She pouted, all anger gone.


	3. Hugs will make it all better

**[A/N]:**** The delays in chapter posting will continue until the reviews/views ratio improves.**

Chapter Three: Hugs will make it all better.

It came to the surface that Weiss' father had not parted from his daughter on the most favourable of terms. The man had apparently descended into alcoholism some time the previous year after the death of a colleague; this had apparently been the last of some thirteen family friends who had been killed. It was unquestionable that the White Fang had been behind it. Blake was ever more grateful that she'd left that crowd when she had.

When, on one particularly bad day, Weiss' father had come home only to overhear his wife and daughter discussing plans for Weiss to attended combat school in the city, He'd objected in a rather direct fashion that Weiss had only a passing familiarity with swordsmanship and was not fit for combat school. Weiss had in turn explained that she'd in fact been planning this for some time and could he please stop drinking while she was trying to talk to him. She'd gone on to say that if he'd been paying attention he'd know she'd been training with a certified tutor for the past year and had more than made up for time with intensity, which had even allowed her to pass the Beacon entrance exams, or had he not noticed when she'd been gone for a whole week last month.

He had decided he didn't like her sass.

She had told him she didn't like having an angry drunk for a father.

He had swung the bottle.

She had left the following month after a complicated legal proceeding. That had all ended with what amounted to a semi-emancipated minor status whereby technically her legal guardians were the nurse-maid who'd done most of the hands on mothering she'd received on the one hand and the Faculty of Beacon academy on the other. It was truly amazing how Mr. Winger, the attorney who worked for the dust miner's union, had managed to turn Huntress-School into an acceptable substitute for military service and guarantee that the widow Dampers (Weiss' nanny) would retain her job at the Schnee household if she wanted it with immunity from being fired until Weiss reached the age of majority.

She had also left with a scar over her left eye. It was quite tidy for being glassed up by an amateur.

And now, it was all getting to be too much. Her mother had, theoretically, only ever wanted Weiss to be happy doing whatever she desired. Because of this her mother had supported her drive to get trained for combat school. Mrs. Dampers agreed whole heartedly and had even exploited her connections in the community to locate a discreet, and more importantly to the mind of Mrs. Dampers, female tutor who had given Weiss the sort of training that people normally had to track down weird little Zen guys in hidden river valleys to receive. For the year leading up to her leaving home, Weiss had worked every day at the kind of training that under involuntary circumstances would have been called attempted homicide. Weiss had loved every minute of it, mostly because it kept her out from under her parents' feet, but also because in her considered opinion of herself she looked good with visibly toned abdominal muscles.

But her kind-hearted mother never knew when to give Weiss' father the talking to he needed. So here they all were, with Weiss facing an invitation she couldn't reasonably refuse from the parent whose love for her was never in question, even if she was a bit distant at times. There was no getting around it; she was suddenly going home for the holidays. Train tomorrow heading through the Forever Fall Forest and north from there to the Schnee estate, with picturesque views of the giant hole in the ground from which eighty percent of Vytal's energy propellant was quarried.

Weiss had finished her explanation only to have the whole team pile on the bunk next to her and pull her into the center of a group hug that tried and may have succeeded in at least temporarily keeping all evils at bay.

Weiss spent the rest of the evening packing and checking up on train schedules. There was an overnight holiday special to the town nearest the estate, and because she'd failed to convince her parents to take a non-business interest in email, she instead sent word to Mrs. Dampers via a kitchen hand who she knew took tea with her old nanny. All this planning had settled Weiss down and her teammates had slowly relaxed their concern for her until things were more or less back to normal.

Then Yang had dropped the bomb.

"So Blake; if Weiss is headed home for the holidays, have you think up some other plan for what to do with yourself? I know all the guys in JNPR were heading their separate ways. I can't imagine that it'd be too fun to just hang out here for two whole weeks."

"It's fine. I talked to Goodwitch and she said that they're no strangers to students staying through the break."

"That's awful! Nobody should be alone for the holidays!" Chimed Ruby; "Weiss, tell her how nobody should be alone for the holidays!" The fearless leader ordered directing her gaze down to the bunk bellow. Weiss had her trunk open on the bed and was neatly folding one of her spare combat skirts.

"It isn't ideal, but from what you say about your uncle Qrow's place there's hardly any room to begin with, let alone for more than two visitors who _really_ like each other, so taking her with you would be right out of the question." This was true. Ruby and Yang had both said that their uncle had cramped accommodations in the attics of Signal academy. Apparently he'd been found in the attic by the previous owner of the property and when Signal had bought the land they could not dislodge him with anything short of burning the place down. When all combative measures had proved inadequate the headmaster of Signal had invited Qrow to stay on as an instructor and given him the use of one corner of the attic.

For once, it was everyone who spaced out to recall things the sisters had said about holidays at uncle Qrow's place. Then the obvious idea occurred to their fearless leader.

"Blake could go with you to your parents' place to keep you from being so lonely." The room seemed to consider Ruby's proposal. Weiss seemed to be avoiding Blake's eye. Ruby was looking back and forth between the two while Yang was just chuckling softly so that nobody would notice.

"If you want to come…" Weiss began finally meeting Blake's eyes. "It's not like it'd be a good idea to advertise that you're Faunus or anything, but apart from that I don't see why not." Blake just nodded and calmly went to get two small suitcases that held all her worldly belongings. Weiss sighed inwardly. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad after all.


	4. platform nine and seventeen seventeenths

**[A/N]: Thank you to Sahqo Med Peytte for commenting on the progress of the story. Their comments have been factored into the overall course of the story. If you wish for your own comments to have a serious impact on the course of the story then tell me what Port's description of Crescent Rose is referencing. Hint: Webley .577  
**

Chapter 4: platform nine and seventeen seventeenths.

It was the next morning. The train terminus in old town Vale was a holdover from when the trains didn't also go south from Vale. After the unification of Vytal, that had changed. There were now three platforms tacked onto the far side of the station that had tracks continuing on to the south. At platform ten, an express train was now coming to a halt in front of those parties bound for the town of Svitz approximately an hour by car from the Schnee estate. On that platform there were the early rising Blake and Weiss. Ruby and Yang had left them in the city as they headed to the boat over to Signal. Now the middle elements of RWBY waited to be allowed onto the train and stood in the awkward silence like a pair of owls. The conductor shouted from the end of the trains and a number of attendants began running back and forth opening doors and storing luggage. The provisions for the lunch and dinner services were loaded onto the dining cars; while no one of higher rank was looking, the driver sent the stoker to fetch more water for the magnetic kettle they kept stuck to the top of the engine block. Weiss' family wouldn't hear of her traveling in anything less than first class. This struck Blake as odd because apparently they were no longer technically responsible for her. She said as much to Weiss who had shrugged and replied that it had to do with image. Even if she had become a street urchin and developed a substance abuse problem, her parents would still pay for a first class compartment on the broad gauge express train.

They boarded, were seated, and continued the silence that had begun when they'd parted from their team mates. Blake was not enjoying this for once. She hadn't liked Weiss when they'd first met. She'd been fairly neutral in opinion of her as the first couple months of school had passed. She'd been furious with Weiss' casual racism, even after learning why it had come about. Then Weiss had come out and decided that none of it really mattered, and they just hadn't discussed it. Then again, they hadn't really discussed it because the Vytal festival had happened to them and then they'd all been too disturbed by Penny happening to Roman to think too deeply about much of anything for a while.

Now though, Blake needed to think. Before the trip started in earnest, she needed to break ground with her suddenly quiet and withdrawn teammate. Weiss was acting out of character. The mere thought of spending time with her family was clearly putting her in a bad state. Blake thought quickly about all that she knew about Weiss' home life. She'd had a rough time the past five years because the White Fang had killed several of her family's company's board members, many of whom were family friends. Blake knew who the dead were. She'd kept an eye on what the White Fang was up to even after she'd left. The fact of the matter was that the specific targets had been selected for two reasons: their own personal treatment of Faunus employees at the Schnee dust company, and how close they were with the Schnee family. The goal, in retrospect was to unhinge Mr. Schnee by murdering all his friends. That had all been in the last five years though. Weiss' daddy issues… the rift between Weiss and her father, Blake corrected, had probably been going on for a while beforehand. He hadn't wanted his daughter in combat school. What would he want?

"So are you excited to see your Nanny again?" Blake asked, trying to get the ball rolling and come at the issue indirectly.

"It's only been a few months, but yeah, I've missed her." Right, rich girl, social interaction limited to same financial bracket. She'd make friends with some of the servants who are closest to her when parents aren't looking.

"Tell me this:" Blake said leaning in and putting on a winsome smile "How does a nurse maid know a combat instructor who can take a rich girl and make a warrior out of her in a year?"

"It helps that I did very little else for that whole year. Mrs. Dampers said she was more of a friend of a friend. She just seemed relieved that the woman matched some mental criteria she had in mind. I think she was secretly worried that I'd find some cute guy teacher and not get anything done." Weiss seemed to brighten up a bit at the thought.

"So what was she like?" Blake asked, hoping against hope that Weiss wouldn't notice that she hadn't asked after one of the women in particular and start talking about her Nanny.

"Miss Hargreaves was and continues to be a hardass. We probably won't see her while we're up there. She was tough, but the only reason I could put up with what she was doing to me in training was because I knew it was what I had asked for." Her smile sunk into the sort of frown associated with thinking rather than unhappiness. "She left the day after she heard what happened with my father. She said she'd taught me everything she could and then just disappeared. I think she might have been mad that I didn't knock my father into next week for cutting my face." The caught Blake's attention, driving her desire to know more about Mrs. Dampers right out her pointy ear. Weiss was better equipped to deal with the reality of her abusive alcoholic father when recalling her hardass mentor. That got pigeon holed for later. Now she just needed Weiss to keep talking and preferably laughing.

"Wonder what training Ruby and Yang got before they came to Beacon. I mean Ruby did nearly blast you both off the side of the cliff first day." Blake said, dangling what had become a fond memory of the team as bait.

"They probably didn't give her many refreshers about handling dust after she'd built that scythe of hers. What was it professor Port called it? Egregious of Aspect?" Weiss had a smile on now. Blake returned it. Keeping Weiss happy was going to be harder when she was constantly reminded about her old life, but at least Blake knew that her team mate's present life could always make up for that.


	5. Arrival

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 5: Arrival

Mrs. Dampers came to pick them up directly from the train station. The train had hardly picked up or dropped off anybody at Svitz; instead, it carrying on to the deep water ports on the continent's north shore and from there to the frozen northern continent. The train had actually come to a complete stop unlike what some people believed about only slowing down enough to keep disembarking passengers from rolling more than once. Blake stepped blinking from her and Weiss' compartment and onto the platform. Mrs. Dampers had approached them with a waddling gait that seemed somehow out of place. Mrs. Dampers looked fat and dressed like a woman who was overweight, why would she waddle? Blake asked herself.

"Weiss dear child!" came a greeting in the voice of someone who didn't have an aristocratic nature but did hang around people who did.

"Mrs. Dampers!" Weiss exclaimed, dropping all baggage and running to meet her nanny halfway across the platform. The hug went uninterrupted by Blake who stood with her back to the train now pulling away.

"How's school?" inquired the seemingly plump nanny.

"It's great; Miss Hargreaves had it down pat. I'm still ahead of a lot of my classmates."

"Good to hear child. Now, introduce me to this friend of yours." Blake perked up at that. She'd been standing near Weiss when they'd stepped onto the platform, but no closer than any of the other travelers really. Everyone had dispersed, but most were still gathering themselves before leaving the station.

"Mrs. Dampers, this is Blake Belladonna, my friend and teammate. She's well read on history and just about anything else someone has ever bothered to write down." Blake smiled softly. Weiss was positively beaming, she'd finally separated from Mrs. Dampers and Blake was getting a better look at the nanny. Weiss was shorter even than Ruby. At nearly exactly five feet tall though, Weiss made a good measuring device. That meant that the seemingly plump Mrs. Dampers was not only broad across the shoulders and abdomen, but also approximately six feet tall. That combined with the way she held herself and waddled to make herself seem fat and unobtrusive meant that…

Too late, need to speak NOW.

"Pleased to meet you." Said Blake; catastrophic silence not having a chance to damn her.

"Likewise young lady." Replied Mrs. Dampers; a kindly smile pulling gently at the corners of her mouth.

Blake helped Weiss and Mrs. Dampers to the car with Weiss' bags. You didn't get many private cars in the city, public transit and service vehicles sure, but for the most part it was just a bother to find a gas station. The urban areas and shopping districts of Vale had so few two way streets as to make anything larger than Yang's motorcycle a hassle to maneuver. This car that Mrs. Dampers was now driving, and that Weiss rode up front in, was of a style appropriated from long ago. The driver sat behind a windshield but was otherwise exposed; the passengers had an enclosed cab. Blake noticed that the front window could and had been rolled all the way down to allow her to talk to Weiss and Dampers as they cruised through Svitz on their way to the road that led to the Schnee Quarry and the estate beyond. Blake did not talk much however. The near miss at the train station had jarred her. She'd taken the measure of Mrs. Dampers and realized that despite appearances she was not fat at all. The nanny was wearing a big overcoat that flared out in the wrong place for her, making her belly seem wider than was suited for the coat. She was wearing a bulky sweater which pulled back in on itself at the bottom which at first glance made it look like she had a muffin top protruding from over her shin length pleated kilt. The kilt itself was an expansive mess of fabric with the McSweeny tartan as its pattern. Blake noticed as Mrs. Dampers shifted in her seat that the pleats at either hip both folded backwards. Weren't pleats across the back of a kilt supposed to all fold in the same direction?

"And that's how they sorted out who was on what team. I'm surprised that we didn't see it coming. Ruby picked the same one as her sister, probably for the same reasons and there we were, all sharing a room with precariously balanced bunk beds."

"Good to hear you finally got bunk beds." Chuckled Mrs. Dampers as they rounded the corner onto the tree lined, private, Blake realized, country road that led to the Schnee estate. Running parallel and some distance away was the public road, without trees, that led to the quarry and freight depot. Blake supposed that this was why there were truck parking stalls that backed right onto the train tracks, trains couldn't very well be expected to run clean through a gaping hole in the ground.

"So what about you miss Belladonna? How's your experience of this wondrous place dear Weiss has abandoned us for?" Mrs. Dampers was also wearing a broad brimmed hat that couldn't make up its mind as to what weather condition it would be best suited to. Blake snapped out of it in time to respond.

"Well, the initiation process was rigorous, but the rest of it is relatively laid back. Sure sparring practice and the like is rough, but you've got people like Weiss, Jaune, and Pyrrah who got out to the yard and practice more after dinner because they think the school mandated training isn't enough." And that's not mentioning the sneaking about I do to keep in form, because that's going to be twice as difficult and demanding than just doing the recommended extra training will be anyways. Blake thought. She had also gotten into the habit of tailing staff and students around. That's how she'd found out that Ozpin already knew she was a Faunus. That guy must have some crazy dust powered hearing ability because nobody should have been able to hear her from twenty feet.

The rest of the ride was uneventful; the only noise was the sound of all of Blake's mental alarms shouting: Danger! That woman is hiding something, or possibly everything.

**[A/N]: This week we acknowledge the contributions of Grande Maester Gnurd. Their ideas were too good not to appropriate despite their answer to the reference game being incorrect. The correct answer was that 'a weapon of egregious aspect' is the description of the Webley .577 used in Howard's _Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer_**

**Anyone wishing to impact the story this week will need to answer me this: What is Mrs. Dampers hiding. Answers will be required to contain three distinct points (a main point plus two modifiers) and should include the desired modification, winners will not be notified until after the reveal.**


	6. The Houses of Rich People

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 6: The Houses of Rich People

The Schnee family estate seemed to be at odds with the source of the wealth that had made it possible. That is to say, there were large hedges around the perimeter to hide the massive crater of a pit mine that seemed to positively glow with the unrefined energy propellant that was absorbing and reemitting sunlight so as to peel back all the shadows in the pit. Inside the hedges, none of the mining noise, debris, or machinery interfered with the imposing air of serenity. Imposing air of serenity only seems like a contradiction in terms if you haven't met a really rich person who claims that yoga is their life. It was an atmosphere that seemed to say 'why yes, I am at peace with the universe, and yes you are in fact messing up the chi just by being here, now what do you want you vile and impure soul?'. The ornamental trees and expansive lawn sloped down from a terrace that supported on its great flat circular face a stately house about the size of a small state.

The house itself was white and silent as the sort of winter that existed in the wilderness far from the sight of men. It did however struggle to pull off this effect in the absence of anything else that was quite as stark as it was. The Layout was cruciform and as they approached the north arm and the front Blake looked on in astonishment as she realized the whole building was made of stone.

"That's a lot of marble." She said, mostly out of a sudden desire not to be without words. Weiss looked back at her, the uncharacteristic enthusiasm she had shown when first reuniting with her nanny was starting to slip back into an apprehensive variant of her normal state.

"All the rooms are done up in some different material. My room is wood and plaster; though you can't tell that under all the paint. The library is right next to it. We've got more books than my father knows exists." There was apprehension and then small triumph there. The haughtiness showing briefly through the storm of badly concealed worry.

"More than he knows exist?" Blake asked, smiling encouragingly.

"We somehow ended up with several full accounts of the Great War written by Faunus officers." Weiss said weakly, but still smiling a fragile smile; it was like the last snow before the rising heat of spring.

Blake did not freeze at the remark. She reacted warmly to Weiss' joke about her father being oblivious to his own library; she also resisted the urge to look into the rear view mirror to try and catch Mrs. Dampers' reaction. She didn't notice then that Mrs. Dampers saw her go tense, ever so briefly.

They pulled up to the north wing entrance and Weiss surprised Blake by carrying her own bags. Weiss was still acting oddly. She'd opened up and wasn't shutting out all conversation anymore, like she had been nearly doing earlier that morning. She was taking a direct approach to handling her own things even as a porter materialized to take her bag. She led Blake up the front stairs and in through the tall white wood doors to the… Spartan, and astonishingly black front hall. Blake had momentarily fallen back on old habits that months around Ruby and Yang and been prying away from her. She went perfectly quiet and scanned the room in great detail.

"They definitely know you're here." Said Mrs. Dampers coming in behind them; she casually made use of a black coat rack to hang her heavy coat; she didn't touch her hat. Blake realized the older woman was talking to Weiss.

"Figures they'd send the servants and not even bother to give a message." Weiss huffed. This was more like what Blake knew the heiress to behave like. Maybe she was only herself in the face of adversity. That might explain her love of planning too, Blake mused.

"They'll meet you and Miss Belladonna for dinner tonight in any case. We've set up and extra bed in your room special. Why don't you show your friend up there and I'll come by to see if you need anything in a while". The old nanny, who was definitely faking a lot of that oldness in Blake's opinion, sauntered off down a side passage without waiting for Weiss to reply.

Weiss beckoned her to follow and together the climbed the stairs out of the black entry hall and into a hallway on the second floor. This space looked a lot more like what you'd expect to find in a rich person's house. That is to say, what Blake thought a rich person's house looked like. The walls were polished wood panels halfway up with some intricate carving that repeated again and again on the lower half. The carpet was a scarlet band running down the middle of the wide floor. Where the carpet met the wall was a band of darker red with repeating golden accents and a fully thirty centimeters of mouldings of the sort that made the Mona Lisa look like a minimalist work.

They came to a narrower set of stairs at the end of the hall and climbed the spiral for what Blake thought had to be four storeys. Weiss led the way down a tall hallway with a slanted ceiling. Blake realised belatedly that the windows on one side of the hall actually opened onto the roof. They stopped at a door taller and wider than any that you would likely encounter on a daily basis. Weiss opened it with an uncharacteristic amount of force and stalked in. It was a spacious room with a high level ceiling. Blake started to think about how this necessitated an attic when she perceived the room's contents; she also suddenly apprehended the ideas that someone in the house had about gender roles.

Weiss' bedroom looked like it belonged to a princess; not just because in a manner of speaking it did. The walls were interrupted at regular intervals by light coloured wood columns and the walls were indeed painted over with what might have been white or maybe an exceedingly pale pink. The bed was large and covered in soft things. Above it hung some sort of hoop which held up a canopy of sorts anchored delicately to the bed's corners. The rest of the furniture was not much better. Blake noticed that the large dresser was carved with hearts and bows. The same was true of the long dressing stand which was probably anchored to the wall judging by the size of the mirror (the frame of which was also carved with bows and hearts). Blake realized that there wasn't a second bed anywhere to be seen.

"So, Mrs. Dampers mentioned another bed?" Blake pitched the inflection as questioning.

"It must be in the back; that's where I usually sleep." Replied Weiss, hitching up her bags again and making her way to an unobtrusive door next to the dressing stand.

Blake followed her through the door. She was briefly appalled to see it also had hearts and bows on it. Through the door was what some people might have called costume storage. Weiss probably called it 'closet'. The place was nearly the size of the room they just been in and was full of department store racks full of _extremely_ tidy outfits. It seemed that while Weiss may have owned more than one copy of each individual article of clothing, she also had a specific and unique outfit that each one was inseparably paired with. Blake was just starting to feel uncomfortable when they rounded a corner and found a space closed in by the backs of shelves. There was a plain looking wooden set of drawers and desk. Next to these were two plain looking beds with plain looking blankets and sheets. Blake was momentarily put out by how Vytal's most prominent heiress lived in a single room at the far end of a closet the size of most stores in Vale.

"How many combat skirts do you own anyhow?" Blake asked as she sorted her belongings into the drawers of something that was a bit large to be called a bedside table. Maybe it was some kind of deformed credenza.

"Three. All that rubbish you saw out there is what you get when a deluded little girl thinks she's a princess." Weiss replied, shoving clothes into the dresser like she had some kind of vendetta against them.

"That's… Weren't you sort of… Considerably prissier, if not on par with that sort of attitude when we all first met?" asked Blake. Weiss looked over at her with a mixed expression.

"I got those clothes before I got into training for Beacon. When we first met I'd been trying to compensate for how things ended with my parents and how inexperienced I was. When in doubt, bluster your way through like the world owes you one." Weiss had turned away again and didn't see Blake looking at her quizzically.

"Snacks!" declared a gleeful voice that sounded muffled. Weiss looked up and around. Then groaned went to turn the key in the lock of a door that was nearly invisible against the wall. Mrs. Dampers emerged bustling, still wearing the oddly pleated kilt, but now holding a large silver platter of cheese and crackers. She was also wearing a comically large, white mop cap in lieu of the broad traveling hat.

The nanny was greeted pleasantly and informed the pair when and where to be for dinner. She also suggested to Weiss that using the back stairs was a totally reasonable idea, with many winks and subtle suggestion that the second floor corridor would not likely be used by either of her parents if they wanted to get nice a close to the 'ghastly orange dining room' without running into them.

Sometime later, as they made their way down the back stairs, in the completely unadorned region Weiss explained was called the servants hall, which both looked like and apparently acted like the backstage and fly loft of a theater, Blake remarked that rich people got decidedly better cheese and crackers.

**[A/N]: Hail to the Superior qualities of Cardinal67 and the returning Sahqo Med Peytte; be upstanding to recognize their sterling contributions and efforts. Nobody correctly guessed Mrs. Dampers' secret and for that we will be ending that challenge.**

**To have an impact on the story please be first to tell me the proper name for the manor house in 'Snuff' by Terry Prachett which is like the Weiss family home in its ****stateliness. You don't get a hint this time.**


	7. Served

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 7: Served

They paused, by what Blake realized was the back side of a portrait with the eyes cut out, to look into the hallway. When Weiss was sure there was no one coming along the passage, she gently pressed open a servant's door that opened onto the hallway leading to 'The Ghastly Orange Dining Room'. This, as it turned out, was an apt description. Ghastly might also have been an apt way to describe the man who had suddenly appeared in their way, startling Blake.

"Hello Mr. Winger. What are you doing here?" Weiss asked. It seemed a bit forward to Blake; If this was the man who had singlehandedly pried Weiss out from under her parents' thumb a bit more respect seemed to be called for. Mr. Winger simply smiled and brushed a strand of his oily hair from his face. The man was mostly limbs, long tube-like sections of pinstriped suit hid all four of them. The torso looked like a three piece suit had been plastered to an upside down squash, but it was not tight enough to suggest that this was how his torso was actually shaped.

"Hello yourself. I invited myself to dinner on the grounds that the kitchen was not told how many people to expect and that Mrs. Dampers also invited herself and wanted a plus one." The man continued his vague smile. Then, like a clockwork toy unwinding, his head glided through a crisp angle to stare at Blake. "Miss Belladonna." He said like a label maker, not caring for what was being labeled. "I understand that you are Miss Schnee's teammate." Another statement of fact.

"Yes." Blake replied, it was all there was to say.

"I am told tonight we're having some kind of vegetable." The Lawyer went on smiling as he turned to lead them into the ghastly orange dining room. "I hope it's one of the green ones." His feet made no noise.

Weiss' parents were the sort of rich people you expected when the word's 'mother' and 'father' are used in 'casual' conversation. Blake wondered if it was an attempt to dissociate herself from them that Weiss referred to them as 'mom' and 'dad' elsewhere.

Whatever the case may be, Weiss had stiffly and formally addressed them as 'mother and father'. Mr. Winger seemed to get a kick out of that when he'd heard it. Mrs. Dampers, who was now wearing her hair done up in a voluminous style that ended in a bun, seemed determined to remain neutral. Weiss sat opposite Mr. Winger, closer to her mother and kitty-corner to Mrs. Dampers. This left Blake sitting uncomfortably close to both the nanny and the imposing head of the Schnee household.

The man himself was nothing special. A grey-white suit without a tie as was the modern fashion for gentlemen not expecting to attend something outside their own homes in the evening. His own hair was a similarly a whitish grey, his eyes, his only noticeable feature, were the sort of blue the makes glacier's envious.

Weiss's mother was clearly the source of the looks the heiress had inherited. In evidence was the white hair and elegant bone structure. She had selected a gown for the evening and Blake suspected was, in the strange way of the obscenely rich, trying to make her daughter's homecoming a pleasant occurrence. And indeed, 'occurrence', was the happiest description that could be applied. Mr. Schnee hadn't said anything and his wife was going on endlessly about the society to-dos that had cropped up in her daughter's absence. Blake wondered how such a woman could ever have been supportive of the Weiss attending Beacon, or indeed be supportive of any activity found outside of novels akin to _Pride and Prejudice_.

"And of course, Sybil and her family came out to their estate when her husband was done rounding up all the accomplices of the dreadful Torchwick fellow. Sybil's husband is the chief of police in Vale you know." This last was directed to Blake.

"Yes, I was actually on deck for the tournament when the Chief had his men moved in on Torchwick." Blake had expected the chief to be a well turned out upstanding member of society. Instead, the kingdom's foremost officer was a scrawny, former night shift captain who could best be described by the word 'badly'. As in, badly dressed, spoken, and in need of a drink. Blake did not mention how the man had stared hard at her before offhandedly mentioning that any person formerly operating with revolutionary groups that had been co-opted by the late Mr. Torchwick would be granted leniency for crimes being investigated by the cold cases office. Blake had said, rather dumbly, that she'd pass the note along to anyone she found matching the description.

Mr. Schnee's posture had left him and we has now leaning against one hand, elbow on the armrest, while his other hand supported a wine glass. On a younger man this would have looked alluring. On the richest man in Vale, it looked tragic. Blake could smell the alcohol on his breath that the pleasant smell of the Green Vegetable and the copious amounts of cologne were failing to conceal. And that was odd. Blake had long ago formed the opinion that the truly rich didn't do that sort of thing. They might wear cologne of course, but for the most part they got by behaving like they really didn't care what you thought. It had not occurred to Blake that it might just be that they really didn't care what anyone thought, as opposed to merely affecting such an attitude. The closest thing Blake got to richness was constantly repairing her own clothes with stolen sewing supplies until she had finally saved enough to buy some rather plain but expensive clothes of the kind that get handed down for three generations before needing to get a single patch. Blake did not realize that thriftiness as a martial art is how many of the financially savvy get by; it would probably confirm most her views about wealth though.

Blake realized that she hadn't been paying attention and that she'd been unconsciously allowed herself to look at Mr. Schnee for too long. She glanced across the table just in time to see that Mrs. Dampers and Mr. Winger were the only ones looking at her. Mrs. Dampers was neutral, but Mr. Winger still had the strange smile.

"And that mean that the visiting season is a year round type of thing now dear." Weiss' mom was saying to her daughter "Dreadful at times, but at least we're prepared for the arrivals this year." Blake realized that Mrs. Schnee was referring to the trains. They'd been around for ages now, nearly a century come to think of it. It was a mystery why the upper crust were only getting in on it now.

"So when should we be expecting the first guests to arrive?" Weiss asked her mother with the sort of polite interest Blake had seen her use with boring teachers when she encountered them between classes.

"I suspect we can expect everyone up to the third cousins and the assorted generations on either side of them." Mrs. Schnee said glancing upwards and tapping her chin in what Blake decided was the most human gesture either of Weiss' parents had made that evening. "We'll see the first cousins within the next couple days with your grandparents. The second cousins will probably show up by the weekend. I suspect that if any of the third cousins remember they're related to us, they'll take until Monday to arrive. So how about we put on a small get together for everyone on Sunday and invite some of the younger people from nearby. Maybe your cousin Milly will find a young man who can to tolerate her…loquacious streak." Blake was just starting to worry that this was going to turn into the lost Christmas special of _Pride and Prejudice_ when Mr. Schnee broke into the conversation for the first time.

"You'll want to have a couple chaperones there to be on the safe side dear." The tone was about as personal as a lobbed brick in a mob. Blake looked over at him to see that he hadn't moved at all from the 'I'd look sexy in this pose if you'd been looking about twenty-five years ago' position.

Dinner was mostly finished in silence and Blake accompanied Weiss back the way they'd come in through. As they left though, she saw Mr. Winger move toward Mr. Schnee. That alone caused her to hesitate. Why is the lawyer who works for the dust miners' union waiting on the dust miners' employer? Mr. Winger then appeared to help Mr. Schnee to his feet and walked quite close to him as they exited; shakily on the part of Mr. Schnee. He really did seem the worse for drink. He'd barely moved during the whole of dinner. How drunk did you need to be to need to hold perfectly still just to hold it together? Blake was starting to feel disgusted on behalf of her teammate.

Mrs. Dampers opened the servants' door that took them 'backstage'. There was something else that needed to be figured out: why did a nanny stay on for this long, why did she help Weiss break propriety by finding that combat teacher, and why on earth did Blake think she was hiding something? These thoughts buzzed through Blake's head as Weiss led the way through the narrow parallel hallways and secret shortcuts that led to the closet sanctum, away from all the glamour and opulence of the ghastly orange dining room.

**[A/N]: Glory be unto the Army of Grimm; Their perspicacity is without rival for they alone noted the amusing fact of last week's word count. Hail also to Cardinal67 who correctly identified the State sized Stately house of Crundells. Their contribution will begin taking effect in chapter ten.**

**To give me ideas which I will steal so that I don't have to waste idle brain cycles at my dayjob on coming up with more content for this story, please deliver to myself and the audience the best possible pun one of these words: 'Elongate','Inundate','Elucidate', or 'Prevaricate'.**


	8. Pistol Whip

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 8: Pistol Whip.

Once she was sure that the other girl was asleep, Blake indulged her instincts. She fished Gambol Shroud from her luggage and silently slipped through the well-oiled door into the dimly lit servants' halls. She found the shadows as she always did. You never really lost them. She crept along rafters and through larders. She discovered a strange sort of repeating pattern to the spaces. There was the main kitchen just below the grand dining room. Servants' corridors ran the length of both sides of the massive room with doors at each end and in the middle. There was nothing short of twenty dedicated dumb waiters for that area alone. She found a set of lifts that took linens to the three identical linen cupboards which were positioned on every third floor. She discovered that the house, which was nine stories tall, had really had three stories repeated three times. The differences were on the top, ground, and second floors. The ground floor held the grand dining room and the even grander grand ball room. The other two wings of the ground floor were filled with meeting rooms and sitting rooms. Some rooms had ceilings much lower than the grand rooms and Blake had wondered what had been done with the extra space. She discovered that the servants' quarters and similar things had been stashed in such places along with load bearing walls.

The second floor was of a more consistent ceiling height, though many rooms were still 'grand'. There was the grand drawing room for instance, the grand tea room, and the grand smoking room. It had seemed odd that a single family residence had a smoking room more appropriate to a full sized gentleman's club in scale. Then it occurred to Blake that there were enough bed rooms, lesser dining rooms, lesser drawing rooms and lesser board, office, tea, sitting, and other rooms on the third through eighth floors to populate the house with enough guests that there would surely be enough gentlemen to make up a gentleman's club. There were also numerous incidental rooms on the third through eighth floors. Someone had thoughtfully realized that a floor with the floor space to accommodate a grand dining room and grand ballroom, but which only had a dance hall and the ghastly orange dining room could have floor space allocated to a cinema, a rarely used gym, a pool, a rather tasteful art gallery, a rather less tasteful art gallery, and a room that might have been an art gallery except that the portraits of naked women lacked the urns and cherubs that let people know they were art rather than pornography.

The ninth floor contained the grand bedrooms, belonging to Weiss and her parents along with a large bathroom for each and separate dressing rooms for both of Weiss' parents. This seemed odd to Blake who could have sworn that she only climbed six stories on the initial trip up to Weiss' room.

Blake was investigating a servants' corridor on the second story somewhere in the vicinity of the grand offices when she heard the floor creak somewhere behind her. Moving fast she flung Gambol Shroud, holding onto the silk ribbon. There was a soft sound and a grunt like someone taking a hit. She'd been careful to have the handle strike the target, there was no sense in sticking an unusually quiet servant. Only there was no sound of a body hitting the floor.

"Pistol Whip" came the voice of Mrs. Dampers; Blake's Faunus eyes were penetrating the dark ahead of her and she saw the nanny holding the gun portion of the weapon like she'd caught it rather than gotten hit "I Get It!" There was a slight chuckle as Mrs. Damper leapt back and yanked hard on the gun. Blake had to take several strides forward to avoid losing control of the weapon. Then she shifted her feet, twisted at the waist, flung an arm out, and pivoted hard on her left foot, wrenching the weapon back into her own grip. She heard movement and ducked just in time for Mr. Winger to completely miss her with the haymaker he'd snuck up on her with. Where'd he come from? She kicked for the slender man's shin and sent him hopping off down the corridor. Mrs. Dampers was barreling towards her. Blake noticed with some trepidation that the older woman was reaching into the strange pleats of her massive kilt and was pulling out… yes she was pulling out two sawed off rifles with heavy looking under-slung blades. There wouldn't be a stab in a blade like that. The width and thickness was more like a butcher's cleaver; Blake didn't want to think too hard about what that implied about getting hit with one.

Mr. Winger was coming back from the other direction with some alacrity and had produced a pair of barbed daggers from somewhere. Blake shuddered, there was no easy way to do this. Someone was about to go down hard.

She sent Gambol Shroud spiralling over Mr. Winger's shoulder and brought it back like a boomerang over his other, vaulted over him and had his neck wrapped in ribbon. The gun was in her right hand and she twisted the man's arm behind his back with her left. She only just got her blade out in front of her in time to stop Mrs. Dampers from tackling everyone to the ground. Dampers had her guns trained on Blake's hip and head, the only available targets. Blake thought she had just enough reach at this distance; she might be able to stick the woman in the gut if she moved. This position is what is known as the Mexican Standoff. This world doesn't have a Mexico and by extension is unfamiliar with the term 'Mexican Standoff'.

The problem was that everyone had stopped fighting just long enough to realize that they might be about to get seriously harmed. That gave just enough time for unconscious reaction to give way to actual conscious thought. Blake's went like this.

Fast. High reaction speed. Clearly trained for combat, though Winger is a bit out of practice. Night vision…

It is rare and amusing when two parties come to the same conclusion at the same time. This was the one that Dampers and Blake got to:

"Why are you here, White Fang Scum?"

**[A/N]:**** HA HA HA HA HA HA ****HA HA HA HA HA HA ****HA HA HA HA HA HA ****HA HA HA HA HA HA ****HA HA HA HA HA HA ****HA HA HA HA HA HA. **

**********************Review please. There is no contest this chapter.**


	9. Shady

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

chapter 9: Shady

Once the Mexican Stand Off had been resolved with a lot of spluttering, confusion, and apologises, Blake followed Dampers and Winger to the grand smoking room. Inside they found Mr. Schnee curled up on a camp bed and watched over by a maid and one of the under-butlers. They were equipped with blunt instruments that would have been useless if the real white fang had stormed the place. Blake noticed that in the corners of the room, facing in, four burly men were standing with the arms crossed. She realized with a start that they too were Faunus and that the two domestic staff members were likely to be distractions.

Blake was getting a bit antsy about all the Faunus she was encountering when Mrs. Dampers suddenly began to exposit on that exact topic.

"So, I figure you must have got out of the White fang around the same time the Geoff, Baker, Crivins, Sam, Fabio, and I did. Management not conform to your notions of civil right activism kiddo?" It was becoming easy to see how this woman had passed herself off as a nanny for so long; the friendly, open language really was disarming; even when she was making light of years of assassinations and cultural insensitivity.

"Yes, I had to leave behind the closest thing to family I ever had. The team helps to make me think I made the right choice." Blake yawned. She really should be asleep by now.

Mr. Schnee was sitting up on the cot. He looked bedraggled, though not in a drunk way. Blake noticed the smell at nearly the same moment; soap, the man smelt of soap. Here he was, guarded in a room that wasn't his bedroom and he wasn't the worse for alcohol, he was the worse for sleeplessness. Mr. Schnee was living in fear.

It was later. Mr. Schnee, Weiss' father Blake reminded herself, was sitting across from her at a table in one of the corners of the room. They had mugs of hot chocolate and the head of her friend's family was slowly regaining the air of humanity that fitful sleep had robbed him of.

"Hilda thought you were a Faunus as soon as she saw you." The man slurred slightly from the tiredness, referring to Mrs. Dampers. "We thought you were a plant by the White fang. Once the circumstances of your exit last year caught up to us, Hilda was able to verify your bona fides as a former operative who defected when dissatisfied. I'd still advise against moving too quickly, White Fang or not; Fabio gets a bit testy." He took a long pull of the hot chocolate, which Blake noticed was lacking in any alcohol.

"I'm surprised you're not drunk." Blake hadn't meant it to be that blunt, but the late hour was catching up with her. The cat tribe was particular about getting as much sleep as possible, especially with winter coming on as fast as it was; she was starting to feel the loss of mental acuity.

"That… ended, a long time ago." The man replied sorrowfully. It was unclear if he was sad about losing the drink or losing his daughter. "Geoff thought it would be best. If I wanted to save face and save the family legacy, we needed to get Weiss away from here."

"So you cut your own daughter with a bottle to save face?" Blake was just shocked enough to delay the kind of action that might otherwise start a fight.

"No!" said Mr. Schnee, looking shocked "I needed to save face because of getting drunk and cutting my daughter's face. I didn't know about her going to Beacon, because I was drunk most of the time she was off training, and so I reacted poorly. I could have forbidden her to attend, but Geoff advised letting her go. Besides, Ozpin has more cunning and artfulness than any three men could have a right to. If she was going to be safe anywhere but here, she would be safe at Beacon. So we kept up the façade of being drunk with grieving for my assassinated friends and have been quietly waiting for the White Fang to overreach itself. Now at last with that Torchwick character out of the picture we can mop up the remainder and get them on board with the Old Tooth." The man seemed considerably more relaxed for getting that all off his chest.

"So let me get this straight:" Blake said holding her head in her hands "You've been playing at being the drunk you used to be so that the White Fang might overextend its reach in attempting to kill you. You keep a number of Faunus on staff at your quarry and as… a legal advisor who masquerades as the collective bargaining guy for the miners' union?" This was getting a bit beyond her. Baker, the brains among the muscle, spoke up.

"We haven't needed Geoff for that since we settled our contract three years ago. It's all been smooth sailin' miss." The stopped Blake, there was too much to process; among other things, the burly men, now playing billiards, were quarry workers. Was that important? What was?

"What about all that press for 'controversial Labour forces and questionable business partners?" She asked. It was Mr. Winger's turn to laugh.

"They're controversial because Baker and friends are suspected to occasionally go off and beat the tar out of any gatherings of militant members of the White Fang. That's what the Old Tooth is mostly about: trying to get the young hawks in line so that civil liberties can move forward. We're known to the VCLU as a peaceful Faunus cultural preservation society, but that's about it. 'Questionable business partners' was a news fabrication to fill space. You don't get far past the headlines do you?" Mr. Winger was giving her the quirked half smile that was apparently typical of him

"Old Tooth?" Blake asked, trying to keep things in her court and not really succeeding. Her brain meanwhile was beginning to threaten migraines in war of bed-time attrition.

"Folk like you who quit the Fang after new management got in bed with Torchwick." Mrs. Dampers cut in "We call ourselves a cultural organization because we do some of that sort of thing on the official side. Dances and chanting. Put in a bit of the old cultural folk music. Native language skills classes. Most of the boys down in the quarry used to speak it at home to their dear old grannies and some of the younger ones want to learn. They're getting the right ideas about how to wage war on a cultural front. One of the younger foremen took a two year part time course to learn the traditional cooking arts of the old Faunus tribes and then married one of the girls in the mail room in a traditional ceremony. Mr. Schnee backed them to open a restaurant serving traditional Faunus cuisine in Vale. They really beat the dropout rate for the hospitality sector I'll tell you." There was a note of pride in the nanny's voice.

Blake sighed. It was getting a bit much to take in. She was going to have to talk this over with Weiss. _Wait a moment_ she thought _Weiss! She was horribly racist when she found out that I was a Faunus._

"When Weiss found out that I was a Faunus, she flipped her lid and we got in a big argument. She was going on about how the white fang was murdering friends of family..." It petered out around about that point. Mrs. Dampers looked on sympathetically.

"We knew Weiss had gotten a touch racist because of what the white fang was doing to her family and friends. We're a bit sad about it of course, but thanks to my hats and hair, she never noticed that I had two sets of ears; she didn't even bat an eye the one time that I had to pick up the left one up off the floor and re-attach it. I'll tell you more about it tomorrow. Now go get your head down girl! You'll fall over soon if you don't." Mrs. Dampers escorted Blake back to her room; then slipped a note to Weiss under the door as she closed it behind herself. The confusion and questions could be put off for a while. Weiss wouldn't have to find out the hard way that her nanny was a Faunus and Blake could have time to sort her thoughts out.

The woman paused by a small window at the end of one of the narrow, undecorated, servants' hallways. Across the moors and hinterland there were clouds advancing with the full force of a northern wind behind them. On a hunch, she climbed to the highest point in the house, a weather station with its own operator and Doppler radar.

"Evenin' Jim." She said to the operator who, despite being human, was quite involved with the cultural events the old tooth put on.

"Try midnight, Hilda." He said pouring her a cup of tea from the kettle that sat near his desk. Mr. Schnee had entirely misunderstood how weather monitoring worked and had, Jim thought, given him an entirely too cushy position.

"Storm's coming." Said Dampers, not quite a question and not quite a challenge to Jim and his methods of prediction; which it must be said were far more sophisticated than looking at clouds and sniffing the air.

"North coast says two meters of snow already. We'll get the front of it in about an hour at the wind speeds they're reporting over the hill. I'll wager… five on one meter of snow by six this morning." It might have been a risk anywhere else, but Dampers just chuckled and waved him off as she sipped her tea.

"Still better than the shitstorm that'll happen when the guests start showing up. I'd envy our Weiss if it weren't for that I pity her so much."

"Too true" replied Jim, sipping his tea "How about that Belladonna girl, you said she was some kind of assassin?"

"We sorted it out. She left the white fang while ago. I bet that's what's been holding Mr. Taurus back, can't find someone who can keep up with him."

"Amen to that." Mutter Jim.

**[A/N]:**** Welcome back to sanity. This chapter is the epilogue of the first arc. Next chapter will begin the 'almost continuous balls' arc. Glory be for the Army of Grimm is once again on parade; see how they demonstrate superb counter marching and lack of spoiler warnings HA HA HA ****HA HA HA ****HA HA HA ****HA HA HA STOPPIT! *Ahem***

******Due to lack of references in this chapter that I can think of off the top of my head, content contribution this week will be determined by a feat of strength. Please name a holiday from around the winter solstice that includes a feat of strength as part of the festive traditions. Hint: It has literally nothing to do with RWBY.**


	10. Arrivals

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 10: Arrivals

Blake was woken by the sound of a distant shriek. Fearing the worst, she leapt out of bed, snatched up gambol shroud from where she'd left it on the floor, and charged through the open servants' hall door. She vaulted over a railing and took off down the corridor; Weiss was at the end of the hallway in her night gown, facing the window. Blake ran as fast as she could to close the distance, but just ten feet away from Weiss she stopped, realizing that there was no one else nearby and that the corridor ended in a dead end. She looked around a bit wondering what was going on. Weiss spun around smiling.

"It snowed!" Weiss exclaimed, her smile was as bright as the light from the window and Blake knew this, because she had to squint to see either the window or her friend. The light of Weiss' smile subsided as she took in the sight of Blake. Then the light turned a little pink as Weiss blushed. "Blake?"

"Yes?" Answered Blake, looking slightly worried by Weiss' embarrassed expression.

"Could you maybe put some clothes on? I don't think I was ready to know that you sleep in striped underwear." The Faunus coloured too and then hurried back to the closet. When both were dressed, Weiss told Blake that Mrs. Dampers had left a note saying that she was making breakfast for them in one of the lesser kitchens down towards the fifth floor.

Lesser kitchen may have been an understatement. In theory, the nook that Blake and Weiss arrived at in comfortable, but unpresentable, clothes was to serve coffee and light snacks to the people being housed in the suits on the fifth floor. It was just large enough for a collection of appliances, a cupboard of dishes and cutlery, the dumbwaiter to one of the pantries, and the table and chairs that some servant had crammed there when nobody was looking. Blake suspected that Hilda Dampers had done that herself. Weiss confirmed this along with telling Blake that Mrs. Dampers was housed in the room next to this kitchen. There was an old heater next to the slightly grimy window, a collection of uneven walls were testament to the load bearing structure that permeated all those parts of the house that the wealthy weren't supposed to see, and on the counter beside an undersized stove sat a rack of surprisingly new looking spice bottles.

Mrs. Dampers herself was engaged in cooking crepes in a shallow pan on one of only two available burners. There was a variety of, Blake noted relatively lower class, crepe filling arrayed on plates or in cheap looking plastic containers. Weiss was going at it with every sign that this was both normal and an enjoyable experience. Mrs. Dampers was carefully not making eye contact with Blake the entire time they were there. On the whole, that suited Blake just fine; she still needed to sort all that mess from last night out.

The girls were intruded upon about an hour later in the closet by a pair of uppity maids who apparently didn't fall under the Hilda Dampers school of interacting with Weiss. They fussed and bothered until Weiss and Blake walked out of the closet, appropriately dressed to greet the arriving guests. In Blake's case this consisted of a fairly plain floor length skirt, her normal tailcoat and both, rather than just one of, her detachable sleeves. There was also a crisp white blouse and an interdiction against showing her midriff in polite company. Lastly, she was given a badge to identify her as a trainee huntress, and therefor exempt from many social requirements that might, to the mind of whoever had dreamt up etiquette, have impeded her in the proper execution of her duty.

Weiss, to Blake's mind got the short end of the bargain. She was dressed in a white and pale blue gown with the fur of something small and cute running around the collar. Blake noticed that heiress was not given the trainee-huntress badge but said nothing.

Together they walked down to the entrance and stood next to Weiss' parents as guests arrived. Blake learned quite a lot about Weiss' extended family that day. There were two pairs of aunts and uncles on Mrs. Schnee, nee Greene's side (older brother, younger sister, and respective spouses.) One younger brother to Mr. Schnee who, although a widower now, was a favourite uncle and the father of the first person from Weiss' own generation that Blake met, though the man himself was absent. Stephanie Schnee, the aforementioned daughter of the favourite uncle, probably put it best by describing herself thusly:

"Yes I do always get called Stephanschnee; no, it is not funny. Yes I do mind you calling me that; no I will not stop talking to you because of it." Nothing funnier had come along since then. Some thirteen total guests had arrived. This led to seventeen people to table that evening. The main course was some manner of chicken swimming in pasta alfredo. Desert was something that seemed suspiciously like ice-cream to Blake but that head waiter announced as something that sounded foreign even to her well-read ears. After dinner it was decided that there were insufficient numbers of gentlemen present to justify the use of the grand smoking room and so the men and women parted ways en route to some of the lesser smoking and tea rooms. For their own parts, all the guests in Blake and Weiss' age group retired early because there was, to their mind, nobody important enough around to try their hand in the world of socializing; they had all already met and presumably spoken with Weiss' parents at some previous juncture, so that was now moot. Blake and Weiss themselves returned via the lavish, gilty hallways to Weiss' room. Blake took more care to note the number of staircases this time and was pleased to find it much closer to what she had counted in the servants' hall than what she had thought on their arrival.

"So, your relatives seem nice." Blake commented as they got changed into their pyjamas on opposite sides of a dressing screen that Weiss had brought in from some other part of the closet.

"You're mistaking manners for mannerisms. They're rich; the world never required that they actually say 'please', they just found it more convenient. They have in fact, arrived at politeness via the long route." Blake noted the decided lack of 'we' in that comment, but apparently none more were forthcoming. Sighing, she pulled on a pair of silk pants and buttoned up the matching shirt. She liked to feel the bedclothes she was sleeping in, but it had now become slightly cooler in the house thanks to the layer of snow that clung to many of the outside surfaces. Window sills, arches, decorative stonework facades, all were laced with snow; the house looked like it was wearing a large iridescent white gown.

**[A/N]:**** I am too tired to actually come up with a new contest this week. Whoever comes up with the best idea for a contest gets to influence the course of the story and gets their contest idea stolen.**

**Nobody reviewed this week. There is no glory or honour to distribute onto noble souls.**


	11. 11 long title, longer-ish chapter

**[A/N]:**** A slight edit has occurred in Chapter Ten. This week's prize goes to whoever can spot it.**

**Disclaimer:**** RWBY is property of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC**

Chapter 11: Avoidance of Antique Weapons as Arranged by a Nanny.

It is a common joke among certain subsets of humanity that because knowledge = power one can derive an equation proving that libraries are the source of dark matter, and second hand book stores are a sort of genteel black hole. In much the same way that large numbers of books on weighty subjects can distort space, large numbers of wealthy or ennobled people can seriously distort the plane of social 'space' like a ball on a rubber sheet. This metaphor has an unfortunate tendency to break down in the presence of abnormal cases such as Her Grace, Stefani Germanotta the Lady Gaga, whose wardrobe, which is made from a fair few rubber sheets, has a capacity to distort the social space all on its own. Wanton cruelty to the common comma aside, this was Blake's general understanding of Weiss' rapid-fire attempt to explain the social circles they were about to move through.

Sometime later, as the two of them passed a quiet and peaceful breakfast in a surprisingly small tea room near to the library, Mrs. Dampers delivered a note from Weiss' mother formally inviting Blake to join the "Young people from the area" at the soiree. Weiss grimaced as she heard this.

"It's mostly going to be sons and daughters of rich families, and a few of my relatives, being allowed to mingle with chaperones around mostly just to make certain that no-one 'causes a scandal'" Weiss then slurped her orange juice with an indelicate noise and expression of mounting disgust.

"At least it says here that I'll be allowed to wear my 'huntress' attire' so I won't have to pick out something to wear." Blake said with some relief.

"Not quite. You get some exemptions for being a huntress, but not enough to cover what you normally wear. Think of it like this… a poster with Goodwitch on it and a caption that says 'you must be dressed at least this chaste' the idea was that huntresses should be ready for action at a moment's notice, but that was before anyone got the idea to wear shorts or well ventilated tops. Etiquette got stuck back around the broadswords and plate mail era I'm afraid." Weiss' pale blue eyes rolled with the weight of the sarcasm. "We've got an in house tailor at the moment. We can stop by there and have a jacket and trousers put together. He's a real genius, and completely wasted on the nobility."

Jon Johnson was a bit younger than Blake had imagined when the term 'genius tailor' had been brought up. Weiss, as heiress first and huntress-in-training second, had not been allowed to remain with Blake unaccompanied in the presence of a man who walked the line between servant and independent party. As huntress-in-training first and guest of the family second, by whatever rules governed this world removed from reality, it was presumed, according to Mrs. Dampers who had escorted them there and chaperoned Weiss off to be dressed in something presentable, that Blake could beat the tar out of Mr. Johnson with the man got frisky.

Jon Johnson did not get frisky at any point. Blake vaguely suspected, and smelled, that the man did not have much in the way of a love life. She was just idly speculating if textile-sexual was an orientation mentioned in any reputable work, when the man came bustling back into the main part of his work room from whatever closet he had been fetching a jacket from. There were very few adjustments to be made to either trousers or jacket as the last woman in need of them, another huntress as it happened, had been about Blake's size and was mercifully a fan of the colour black. Jon the tailor left Blake to get back into her own clothes. There was a brief exchange to the effect of having them sent up to Weiss' rooms when they had been adjusted and cleaned. Outside the tailor's work room, Mrs. Dampers was waiting for her.

"Thank goodness! Much longer and we would have been having guests coming through here." Hilda Dampers took Blake by the elbow and conducted her down the hall and to an open servants' door. Shutting it firmly behind them, she began speaking quickly. "We've realized that some people might take it the wrong way if they see you before tonight. Rich entitled buggers act up if there's someone around they don't know. This is one of those 'all the chaps know everyone who is a chap' sort of places. In any case, we'll swing by the armoury and get you something a bit more socially acceptable than the wicked little number you have tucked away in your room."

"Hold on." Blake shook the older woman off "We still need to talk about what you're doing… in general terms." Mrs. Dampers sighed, shaking her head.

"Look girl, I used to be in the white fang years and years ago. Back when it was just a civil rights movement. Then, five years ago or so, new management takes over, gets in bed with Torchwick and whoever he was working with, and ruins everything for everyone. I left them, they came for me and Mr. Schnee, Geoff defected when he heard about it, he came to warn us in advance, we got this place ready for a siege, and then we beat them off. You'd be surprised how often that kind of thing used to happen before the Great War. Noble families fighting little wars for some idiotic reason or other, houses got sieged. Now are we going to the armoury or not? Do you want people staring at you because you're the huntress who doesn't have a sword?" It was Blake's turn to sigh. She knew the woman was still hiding something from her. She didn't like the idea of Weiss not knowing that her nanny was a faunus. Never the less, she followed Dampers down through the servants' halls to Mr. Schnee's Grand office on the second floor. They passed the man himself who nodded in amiable acknowledgement at Mrs. Dampers and avoided meeting Blake's eyes. The action was mutual. It was strange for Blake, trying to parse how he was still about as bad as she had thought, but for largely different reasons. The white fang had protested the Schnee Corporation many years ago, and then begun attacking them in the last five years. Come to think of it, Blake had always known that there were assassinations being carried out, but the white fang had started to operate like a military organization; the operatives had not been told of the overarching strategy. It was slightly unsettling to remember how as many people had left the White Fang over matters of transparency as had left over matters of policy. That was militants for you, she supposed.

And thinking of militants: would they have ever liked to have gotten their hands on the Schnee family armoury. They had passed through one of the doors behind Mr. Schnee's desk, down a corridor and through one of the massive, bunker-esque doors used for panic rooms into a low ceilinged room which boasted some impressive stone arches and tasteful statuary. The room, Blake realized, was keyhole shaped. The circular portion was at the far end, where the ceiling rose to a high windowed, vaulted space that Blake belated realized must be part of one of the turrets at the house's corners. In the center of the high ceilinged area was a tall statue of some militarily-significant ancestor to the Schnees. Arrayed along every available piece of wall space was what must have amounted to a history of warfare at the individual level. Crossbows and longbows gave way to a handsome collection of antique rifles and pistols on the right-hand side. On the left was what amounted to hoplophiliac's wet dream. There was 'pole-arms through the ages', 'Clubs of all cultures', and at least two thirds of the room was taken up with an amazing diversity of swords. Blake couldn't help but smile, Ruby would have loved this place.

Mrs. Dampers led the way to a collection of traditional weapons from Vacuo. Wooden scabbards with colourful stains and a highly polished finish. There were straight and curved blades equally represented. All the grips in this section had the diamond shaped flat braid characteristic of Vacuo's swordsmithing tradition. They were also the type of sword that amateurs gravitate towards based on things they heard in the pub or, in the case of the younger generation, online. Blake preferred the modern, dust powered weapons, which she noted were kept in a side room, through another armoured door and was about to comment as much to Mrs. Dampers when she realized that the older woman was looking in the same direction.

"Those are for the household guard. They take a dim view of anyone carrying that sort of thing around them. I only get away with it because Mr. Schnee has known me for years. As for these pretty wall hangers, well, I chose most of them myself. Anything too old or too badly made to be used in a full scale battle gets put in the family museum. This looks like it'd do." She pulled a straight sword in a lacquered black scabbard from its place on the wall. She inspected it briefly and handed it off to Blake. "Don't pull it out unless there's a Grimm running loose in the house." She said wryly "That's technically why you're allowed to carry it. We'll be wanting it back before you go. And for the love of god, don't go touting that pistol blade of yours where the aristocracy can see it. They have _views_ about that kind of thing. Now run along back up to Weiss' room. The suit should be on its way up shortly and the local rabble will be here soon for the soiree." She pronounced the word like it was an illness and shooed Blake out of the armoury.

**[A/N]:**** We would like to thank Sahqo Med Peytte for their continued support of the story. No other commenter has shown such dedication to the cause. In recognition of their efforts they shall henceforth be known as ****Sahqo Med Peytte: Das Uberkritiker.**

**In other news that the easily annoyed may wish to avoid: I had a horrible realization a couple weeks ago: Somebody else already wrote a beautiful fic for Dashingicecream's monochrome arranged marriage AU (it can be found somewhere on tumblr). Now I'd just be rehashing the idea if I did it. This means that I am just writing my own work in the vague hope that Dash-senpai will notice me... **


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